Q3 2008 Email Threats Trend Report highlights

 New camouflage tactics spammers use to cloak their bad reputations enable malware and unwanted messages to infiltrate inboxes, according to a new report by Commtouch. Commtouch’s third quarter 2008 Email Threats Trend Report, released today, is based on the automated analysis of billions of email messages weekly.
 
Highlights of the report include:

• Spam levels throughout the third quarter averaged 77%, as in the previous quarter, ranging from a low of 61% to a peak of 94% of all email
• Legitimate sites and senders were used by spammers to cloak their illicit activity, including sites like Microsoft’s Live.com
•  Over half of zombies/bots change their IP address daily
• Germany has the fastest rate of zombie IP address turnover, at approximately 79% per day; China is a close second at 78% turnover per day
• Malware masqueraded as legitimate newsletters such as CNN Daily Top 10 or IE7 Browser updates
• New spam tactics during the quarter included: links to Flash (.swf) files, ASCII art spam, and hidden Bayesian poisoning text combined with HTML tricks